Taxes that the super-rich don’t pay

Those who now call themselves “billionaires” are lucky: in every crisis, whether it’s the coronavirus pandemic or the war in Ukraine, their wealth only increases dramatically.

The press is talking about fabulous wealth and acquisitions these days: a Hong Kong-based Chinese real estate entrepreneur named Cheung Chung-Kiu recently paid more than £200m for a 45-bedroom London home.

In marinas, the most luxurious yachts are moored as their extremely wealthy owners decide one day to take a cruise with their lover or friend. Something similar happens with private jets or helicopters at airports.

According to the American magazine Forbes, in the two years of the pandemic alone, the number of people with a net worth of more than a billion dollars has increased by 573.

At the top of the list of these lucky people is Tesla, who currently has a fortune of more than $ 218,000 million, and Elon Musk, the founder of the aerospace company SpaceX.

Meanwhile, non-governmental organizations are denouncing that even in the world we call the rich world, more and more families have to choose between a shopping cart or heating. And the decision should not be predicted.

In some of the world’s most powerful cities, the United States, including Los Angeles, hasn’t seen as many homeless people as recently: it’s definitely a sign of the times.

And all this has a lot to do with a completely unfair tax system that everywhere taxes labor income far more than capital income.

A system that also allows the super-rich to resort to thousands of legal tricks to contribute as little as possible to the financing of the utilities that should characterize the welfare state.

ProPublica, the investigative journalists portal run by Jesse Eisinger, has obtained some anonymous leaks from the US Treasury, where they spent months deciphering and verifying the data.

And they discovered that there are the richest men in the world, such as Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Bill Gates (Microsoft), investor Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway), Michael Bloomberg (founder of the financial information company of the same name), or businessman. Some of the Rupert Murdoch media barely pays taxes and does it legally.

Thus, the average American citizen had to pay an income tax of between 22 and 37 percent thanks to all manner of cheating and alleged losses, while the twenty-five richest Americans paid only 3.4 percent of the average, according to Forbes. They earned another $401,000 million between 2014 and 2018.

According to ProPublica’s calculations, Musk, the world’s richest, paid 3.3 percent of his income to the US treasury in those years, despite the fact that Bloomberg (1.3 percent) or the second richest Jeff Bezos contributed 171,000 million. paying only 1 percent income tax.

Warren Buffett, who likes to introduce himself to the public as a “good” rich man and increased his fortune by $24.3 billion in the same years, paid only $23.7 million, or 0.1 percent in tax.

The increase in personal wealth through revaluation of shares is in principle not taxable in the United States, but the owner has to pay taxes only when selling these titles.

As German weekly Der Spiegel points out in an interview with the founder of ProPublica, guys like Musk don’t sell stocks when they need money, they use them as collateral for loans. And this can be deducted as a loss.

To all this must be added the tax “dumping” implemented by many countries, including parts of the EU such as Austria and Luxembourg, that allow the super-rich to take their money there when they do not decide to hide it. a tax haven. And if not, ask our Honorary King.

Source: Informacion

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